By Benjamin Ladner, First Year Geography
Salford’s Shaun Ryder has carved out his own niche in rock 'n' roll history in the forty years he’s been playing live. Thirty of those are as part of the group Black Grape, which is centred around the dynamic duo he formed with Paul ‘Kermit’ Leveridge after the tumultuous decline of the Happy Mondays in the early 90s.
This tour celebrates 30 years since their debut and bestselling record, It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah, but the setlist still takes a career-spanning and crowd-pleasing worldview. The set kicked off with 90’s barnburner 'In the Name of the Father' and ended with their most popular hit 'Kelly’s Heroes.' The songs between those included album tracks from their debut, as well as some hits from their follow-ups Pop Voodoo and 2024’s Orange Head.
If you’ve seen him live before in any capacity, you’ll know all about the most famous walk-in wardrobe in Los Angeles – that was mentioned again, and formed a part of Ryder's (in)famous stage banter and craic.
The two frontmen are a chemical interaction on stage: Kermit raps while Shaun bellows beat-poet style lyrics, clad fully in designer tracksuit. The backing band behind them aren’t too bad either. At the end of the set, following 'Kelly’s Heroes', the band took over and led a funky, 70s rock style jam up until the curfew. In true punk fashion, the lead guitarist lent his strat up against the PA wedge to create a screeching whine of feedback – until the sound guy turned off the stage sound and put the interim playlist back on.
One of the more impressive features of Black Grape is their sample choice, both in recordings and on stage. As stated before, a lot of them hail from American religious recordings – like the Gospel choirs in 'In the Name of the Father' and 'Reverend Black Grape'. Often in a live setting, the audience will be chanting along to these rather than the actual vocal lyrics.
The touring opening act were Dodgy. No… that’s the band name, not description. They are a recently reformed 90’s indie jangle group. Their biggest hit was 'Good Enough', which closed their set, seeming to go down well with the mostly middle-aged crowd.
Aside from that, much of their set seemed to be recently released tunes. As a support act you might hope they’d play a festival-style set, starring only their most recognisable tunes.
The Electric is a great choice of venue for these sorts of revivalist groups - or any sort of group with a powerful frontman - because the stage is both wide and deep. This gave Shaun and Kermit, or maybe Ian Brown… or Jarvis Cocker … or Tim Booth … or any washed-up 90’s vocalist rearranged ad infinitum plenty of room to perambulate and interact with both sides of the audience at once.
Owing to the Electric’s main role as a club, too, there's plenty of floorspace. The gig wasn’t sold out, but if it had been, I’d still have had room to breathe.
In retrospect, they are a great band to see live – I’ve seen them twice before, so it didn’t impact me the same way it did the first time. But they truly are a tour de force of music to behold: Ryder always has the crowd in the palm of his hand, and the band behind him keeps the music pumping.
Featured image: Benjamin Ladner
What is your favourite Black Grape song?
